Ti West Gives Horror a Good Name

The "House of the Devil" director on horror-ish films, "Cabin Fever 2" and how we get the "Saw" franchise we deserve.

The film never treats its period detail as a wink-wink joke. Were there any moments when you had to consciously dial down ‘80s elements to avoid turning the film into a stunt?

Not so much with regards to the tone. Greta Gerwig’s character is the most fun, obnoxious character in the movie, and sometimes I’d reign her back. Or I’d make sure Tom [Noonan] and Mary [Woronov] weren’t scary to the point that you’d think, “No, [Jocelin] wouldn’t even bother with these people.”

As for the [on-screen] title, yeah, it wasn’t our first attempt. There was a fine line where you put the title up and went “Dude, this is a goof now.” I didn’t want it to look like “Grindhouse” where it was this spoofy homage thing. The same thing was true of the music in that sequence. We wrote it to be authentic, not elbow-in-the-ribs, wink-wink. If anything, it’s a subtle wink.

Working on “HoTD” seems to have been a pretty painless experience, unlike what happened with “Cabin Fever 2.” What’s that film’s current status?

As honest as I can be about it, it’s an Alan Smithee movie for me, but I can’t Alan Smithee it because I’m not DGA. If you’re not DGA, the only way to do that is to get the producers to approve it, and they won’t because they’d have to redo the titles and they’re not going to spend money on that, and it decreases the value of the movie. So the reality is, tough shit, you’re going to have your name on the movie.

“HoTD” is pretty unconventional. Was “Cabin Fever 2”’s problem that it was even less conformist?

“HoTD” isn’t even close to what “Cabin Fever 2” was. It was anarchy of a movie, and I think it could have been truly awesome. But it was mind-bogglingly bizarre.

On purpose?

Yeah. It was supposed to be a Paul Bartel movie, like the tone of “Eating Raoul” or “Death Race 2000,” this satirical social commentary horror comedy. Like “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School,” “Hollywood Boulevard,” early Joe Dante, John Waters, Todd Solondz. It was an outrageously absurd dark comedy that had a lot of commentary about sex and STDs. But it was a crazy person movie, and I think it just seemed a little too crazy for the time. And it was a movie that, until it was 100% finished, would not have been fully realized.

[The producers] had the best intentions, but there wasn’t footage to make a Version B of that movie. The version they wanted — there just wasn’t the footage to make something less crazy, because what we were shooting was insane, like full-frontal discharging male nudity, and people projectile vomiting blood into their mouths while they’re making out at the dance. There are a lot of people on that movie that I like, and I brought over a huge part of that crew [for “HoTD”]. I get why it went wrong. I just wish the problem-solving had been treated differently so that, even if I wasn’t totally thrilled with the final version, it could have been a compromise everyone could have dealt with. But it became, “This is what we’re doing with it, are you in or out?”

The silver lining would have been the Alan Smithee thing, because as much as a Smithee credit sucks, at least you’d be part of that club.

You’ve got a web series, “Dead & Lonely,” that just launched on this site. Were you looking to do something smaller and quicker?

Joe Swanberg is a close friend of mine, and I’d worked on “The Stagg Party” and had a good experience doing it. I’d also been watching a lot of TV on DVD, and thought doing episodic stuff would be fun. “Dead & Lonely” was an easy way to do a low-budget, little experimental thing to try a different kind of medium, and like my other movies, it’s horror, but it’s really horror-ish.

Do you have future horror-ish plans? And are you concerned about being pigeonholed as someone who only works in one genre?

I think I am pigeonholed, and I don’t particularly like it. But if I’m making my own stuff, I feel very comfortable. When I get outside of that zone — certainly the experience I had with “Cabin Fever”… but even there, up until it went bad, it was phenomenal. Nonetheless, to jump on something else, which I may be doing in the near future, is not quite as exciting for me. I have a trust-no-one mentality, so I go in like this [fists raised]. Going in with an adversarial position is not ideal.

But yeah, I’m attached to do that “Haunting in Georgia” movie, which has nothing to do with the first one, it’s just a haunted house movie. There’s something else that’s not horror at all that I hope to make as well, because I don’t want to make only horror movies. But ever since “The Roost,” I can sit around trying to get money for this romantic comedy that I want to make, or I could make “Trigger Man.” And after “Trigger Man,” I could go back to the rom-com, or I could go make “HoTD.” And look, I don’t have to go back to working at the mall if I do that, you know what I mean?

I really like horror, but as we discussed, horror really sucks right now. Bad. And hanging out in a really shitty genre, you’re constantly trying to prove yourself to other people. I think the best audiences for “HoTD” are non-horror audiences, because it’s not in-your-face gore all the time. But it’s hard to communicate that, first because it’s called “House of the Devil,” and second, because people think horror movies stink, that they’re lowest-common denominator. And they shouldn’t be.

What’s your take on the reasons behind the sorry state of current horror?

“Saw VI” is coming out — the poor “Saw” franchise, I’m not trying to pile on, but they’ve just become the whipping boy — but if “Saw VI” makes a bunch of money, that’s our own fucking fault. Because there will be a “Saw VII.” And I don’t think Lionsgate, or even whoever directs, really wants to make “Saw VII,” but hey, it’s going to happen because people went and paid $35 million to see it. “G.I. Joe,” same thing. We’re going to get another “G.I. Joe” because we all went to see it. So it’s our fault.

People don’t understand that you can be proactive in determining what’s out there. They just go, “Eh, let’s go see whatever,” and that attitude makes more of this stuff.

The other thing is the test screening. The test screening [system] has gone off-off the rails. I have friends who are making a movie now, the movie is good, they like it, the company likes it, and the studio likes it, but it tested poorly. So now the studio’s like, “What are we going to do about it?” An hour ago, everyone was excited, but it didn’t test well, so things need to be changed. And it’s like, “No, it’s good, you don’t have any problems with it, and we’re the ones making the movie, not these rubes we brought in that aren’t involved with it!” But the reality is, the studios feel they need to do whatever they can to reel in as many people as possible. That, I think, is really unfortunate, and just making movies lowest-common denominator.

Finally, who designed “HoTD”’s supremely awesome poster?

His name is Neil Kellerhouse, and it’s the best poster of all time. He also did “The Girlfriend Experience” poster, which I thought was amazing. Everyone should use him for everything. He’s a genius.

“The House of the Devil” opens in New York, Los Angeles and Austin on October 30th before expanding into limited release on November 13th; it is also currently available on VOD.

[Additional photo: Justin Rice in "Dead & Lonely," IFC.com, 2009]

Pages: 1 2